 Think Tech Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Good afternoon and welcome to Pacific Partnerships in Education. This show is all about the various partnerships around the Pacific that Prell and other groups have formed to help improve the state of education across the Pacific Islands. I'm your host Ethan Allen here on Likeable Science, on Think Tech Hawaii, sorry, some other show, Likeable Science, but this is Pacific Partnerships in Education. And with me today is Ariana Tabong. I've got the last name. Yes, Tabin. Tabin, sorry. And she's going to help explain today what Marshallese Education Day is all about. And that's coming up here later on this month, right? On the 21st of April. So why don't you just jump right in and tell us a little bit about the background of Marshallese Education Day. Okay, thank you Ethan. So Education Day started, Marshallese Education Day started in 2007, when a group of parents and teachers, high school students, they came together and they just, they wanted to honor their students. They wanted to, I would say, sorry, I'm freezing. They wanted to honor the students and recognize that their work in school. And so they created this event that happens every year and they bring all the students who have 3.0 and higher and they give them awards and this is a day where we invite service providers, guest speakers. We've had previous governors come and speak as guest speakers for our event and it's just a day to showcase our culture to the service providers but also to teach the students that they should continue to excel in school because education is key. Right, right. That's something that's a problem, not just with Marshallese migrants but migrants from Micronesia, Palau, Saipan, wherever, right? A lot of these people come with very, the formal education systems in a lot of those areas are regarded very differently in their home territories. Our sort of western formal schooling is a relatively new invention there or a relatively recently brought in and I gather in some places that we have teachers that don't take school nearly as seriously and our CEO, Paula Haddock, says on Chook sometimes 20, 30% of the teachers may be absent from the evening of the day. That's appalling, right? It just speaks of a whole lack of understanding about the importance of education. Here in the U.S. you can't get away with that, right? Any school for 20% of the teachers are absent. They close the school down with you. So, yeah, it is really important to get help. I'll reorient kids to this. That's a really interesting way to do it, to take the kids who are doing well and say, hey, look at these. These are our role models worth emulating. What they're doing is good. We'll recognize it. We'll honor them. We'll support them. Yeah. So, from the way I see it, I think it's been very successful because during the first education day that they held, they only had 16 recipients. Yeah, and the percentage of recipients grew by more than 50% within the past few years that it has occurred. So, this year we have so far 28 students, but that's only just a few schools. We haven't received all the report cards from most other schools throughout the island, so it's been very effective in increasing the number of students that excel in these schools. Sorry. No. And it's really, I mean, education fundamentally is a sort of gatekeeper in our culture here, right? And you're really, if you don't get at least a good high school education, hopefully some post-secondary, your job options, your employment options are realistically somewhat limited in this culture. I mean, unless you're just a native-born tech genius, right? You can go out and create an app, put out that. So, I'm sorry. I don't think I mentioned during education day, before we actually have the program where we give out the awards, we have parent and student sessions. So, the parents and the students are separated into different rooms and they have speakers who speak to them. They're the parents. They have people who come and speak from, like, Department of Health or Financial Aid who also go help the students. And we also send people from RMI Scholarship back home who come and also give information on how to apply for college and how to apply for the scholarship that's available. And then we have, like, sometimes we have people from HPD who come and just, you know, speak to the parents and just all these great opportunities. And, like, the turnout is that there's more parents that are involved in the schools, the student schools, and there's more parents going to the parent-teacher conferences. And they're just very much more involved now with the student schools, and that's a great sign. Absolutely. I mean, it's really critical in the U.S. that the schools that are doing well are generally the schools that enjoy parental support. The students are going there. The parents are involved. These parents obviously want their kids to be getting good educations. They sort of keep the school honest, basically. They say, you know, we want to be sure you're giving good programs. You're doing what you say you're doing. And, again, I don't really know if it's so much true in Majuro, but in a lot of the Pacific Islands, parents would not be involved in the schools. So their attitude very much is that school. What they do there is what they do there, and we don't deal with that. We look after our own selves. Again, a very culturally different attitude. Yes, it is. When I was growing up, I remember not every single parent was involved in fund raisings when we had a trip to Punapé. And I remember not all the parents were involved. And it was frustrating for the other parents who were very involved in these, because we had fund raisings on Saturdays and some parents couldn't come. And most of the parents that are always there, it gets frustrating for them. But when we have Education Day here, and we tell these parents the pros and cons of participating in these student schools, there's more outcome in parents being a part of those schools. And parent involvement is always great. Yeah, it's so important. It was driven home. I've worked in education with my adult life. And when I was in Chicago, working with public schools there, we had a lot of schools where it was very hard to get the parents involved. These schools were particularly in the African-American neighborhoods. The parents had been failed by the schools. Basically, the parents got no real good education at all. They understood the schools failed them, and they essentially believed the schools would fail their kids, so why should they invest any time or energy? It was a real struggle to get them involved. Then I moved to Seattle, and we had almost the opposite problem, because the parents there were like Boeing engineers, and they wanted to be sure that their kids got that. The very best education, which was the education they had had, that they were resistant to change sometimes, because of that, because it's like, hey, why are they doing these fancy new programs? They should do the same drill and kill worksheets that I did that helped me become an engineer. So different things, but in both cases we saw that the real importance of having the parents working with the schools. So that's a great thing. The Marshall Education Day really helps promote that and encourages that. And again, it shows parents that's an okay thing to do. That's a very positive approach. Excellent. So what have been the sort of impacts on some students? I mean, when they get this sort of recognition, how does this help them? How did it help you? You were recognized, right? Well, personally, when I was asked, well, my dad kind of just like told me to go to this thing, and at first I didn't. I was kind of, I don't know, I just didn't want to go, but then when I went, I actually, I liked the whole idea of getting these students together. I liked the student session because they were teaching us all these things and the importance of going to college and if you don't go to college, then this will happen. So to me, it was great because I got to, I'm so sorry, I'm like totally blanking. No, but it's true. I mean, you have only to look at the basic statistics of what a college education will do. I mean, it'll add millions of dollars to your lifetime earnings basically over not having that. So, I mean, clearly in our culture, you can argue whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but in at least the U.S. culture, it's an important thing, you know? And so it's wonderful if they encourage it. The other thing I think that's probably really important is having these success models up there, these students who have started to succeed like yourself and students have done well who have gotten into college or graduating from college because it says the students who are there are like, oh, I could do that too. It's not an unreal thing, right? Too often, students who feel excluded or feel they're in some sort of a minority in their schools don't see the rural models. They don't see the way forward, right? And so you're helping here. And you've got, of course, you've got some excellent role models. You're the president of your country. Hold on. I'm a former PRL staff member by the by. First PhD from Marshall Island. I believe, yeah. Amazing woman. Yeah. So I've been going around to the high schools and I asked the students one time, what is stopping you from going to college? And the students just said, we can't afford it. But, you know, I had to tell them that we have RMI scholarship that will support you all the way until you graduate and then you'd have to go home and, you know, work for two years or now the new policies for four years. But that was their problem and that's the only problem that they had. They thought they couldn't afford it. But I had to tell them there's a lot of opportunities for other scholarships. There's financial aid. If you go to the UH scholarship website, there's like pages and pages of available scholarships for Pacific Island students too. And so I think the Education Day committee or the whole Education Day event is also dedicated to showing all these opportunities to the students because they initially thought, you know, all the doors were closed for them and after high school, that's it. They just have to figure out, you know, where to work and all that. Right. And that is so important again, particularly because if you've come off a relatively isolated place, and you have to figure out how to module it from some outer islands, the multitude of choices they face in the U.S. is, you know, you have to be sort of showing those doors. And here are the opportunities. Here are the 16 different scholarships that might be available to help support you through college. And, you know, here are these grants that you could go after and write a little essay for and, you know, get some support that will help for your tuition or whatever. And there's community colleges and there's four-year schools and there's, you know, private schools and public schools and, you know, all kinds of different things, right? So it really is important. So what do you think was sort of important for you? I mean, why is it that you have been so successful and you think other students might not be? What challenges did you face that you overcame? So for me, I think I've gotten to where I am today mostly because of my family. Quitting was never an option and I remember one time when I was at USP my grandmother was dropping me off at school and I just sat there in the co-pilot and I said, Grandma, I'm not going to school today. I don't want to be in school anymore and she just gave me the talk of my life and I think that's when I woke up and I was like, OK, I'm moving to Hawaii. I'm going to go get, you know, my degree and I'll be back to take care of you and my grandpa. So that's the main reason why I've tried so hard to be a good student in school because I have to give back. It's my responsibility to give back because they sacrificed a lot for me and so it's just for me. I feel like it wouldn't be fair if they did all that for me for me to just not do anything as an adult and not take care of them, not provide for them. It's just all about giving back for me. Sure. And that carries through to what you were talking about, the scholarships from the government, right? Which will pay your way through school but then essentially you come back and turn and agree to work on the site because essentially Marshall Islands need well-educated young people starting new businesses, supporting businesses, being a talent pool for them to draw from so they can get their economy up and running on a better level, right? Yes, that's true. And I have a lot of friends and I'm very proud of our generation because there's a lot of us who are actually in school and there's some who are law students, there's some who are in med school and there's some who are just environmental students and I think they are great role models for our MED recipients for this year because our younger students can just look at them and see, oh, they came from where I came from. We lived in the same community. If they can do it, why can't I do it? So it's like a great initiative for us the older students to be a part of all that's going on around in Honolulu and in the states to show to our younger students that they should be involved, too. Excellent, excellent. We're going to follow this up and dig deeper into it when we come back. Right now we're going to take a little break here. I'm Ethan Allen, host of Pacific Partnerships in Education. Ariana Tubman is with me from the Marshallese Consulate. She's an intern here. All right, we'll be back in one minute. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate and empower and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. and we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner and I'm Beatrice Cantelmo. And we have come in this series young and old alike to take a look at our past, your past and the past that's not seen in history books. History books are his story and what we refer to as mirrors of the past. But we as colonized people, indigenous peoples and people of Kola, look into the mirror and do not see ourselves there. On the Ties that Bind, we will examine those underlying causes. Please join us with the Ties that Bind on Wednesdays at noon twice a month. We look for you there. Aloha. Aloha. And you're back here with me, your host Ethan Allen of Pacific Partnerships in Education here on Think Tech Hawaii. Ariana Timman is with me today. We're talking about Marshall's Education Day. She's on the planning committee for the this year's celebration on April 21st at the... United... Harris United Methodist Church. Yes. And you can even hold up that flyer a little bit. Oh, okay. And we can also pop that up. Okay. It's popped up on the screen already. So there you go. Find everything you want from this flyer. You'll probably see it. You're mostly posting these around town now, I assume. Handing them on out. Good. So no, this should be an exciting event. This is going to draw all the Marshallese students and their parents. And essentially, highlights, as you were saying in the first part of the show, highlights the students who are succeeding. We're doing a 3-point or a better average sort of what you want other students to aspire to be, right? So they will then go on, be able to get through high school successfully, pursue post-secondary opportunities in education, go off to kind of, as you said, lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, librarians, what have you, right? Yes. And you're talking about some of the good options of support that aren't... So why is it known among these students that your are my government has scholarships and support available essentially are basically what will cover students' tuition and costs through college and then they just have to go back to agree that after college they'll come back and spend that same amount of time working in RMI, which is great, as you say. It's a nice way to pay back your country, as it were, just as you were talking about sort of giving back to your parents or your family for supporting you. Wonderful, wonderful. So, but students do face Marshallese students particularly if they're relatively newly here face a lot of challenges, right? I mean, English while spoken in Marshall is not really, it's not language of the day, right? I mean, it's really only used in the school, right? Yeah, so it's much of the time they're not speaking English, they're speaking Marshallese, they've never learned English terribly well. They're now in an environment where English is spoken as a first language by first everyone. But there are other things to say a little bit about that sort of culture in terms of how seriously education is taken in Majuro versus here in Hawaii. So, I would say our education, our public school system is trying their hardest to provide the best quality education for our students back home, but it'll never be the same as it is here in Hawaii because the way that you have high speed internet, first of all, and you have all these available resources for the children to look at. Back home, I remember my school, my high school actually we were using books that my aunties and uncles were using those generations were using, so that's just the barrier that's preventing our students, our children back home to be getting the quality education that every child deserves. So, I got to take a little aside here and tell you about a program as part of this I was just at Majuro involved in a project that we're helping schools work on improving the quality of their drinking water around their schools. But as a sort of a side part of this we used, do you know the things called raspberry pies? It's a little mini computer basically so we can get these, they're relatively cheap, they come in boxes, put a solar panel on them so they can be charged by solar panel but they can serve as a little hub and be pre-loaded with a whole bunch of content they can hold books and books and websites and all kinds of other stuff and then they can serve as a sort of local internet hub and 30 or 40 people at once can be accessing all this information so for Pick Your Students on the Outer Islands these things will become really I think will in the next five years become really valuable because you may not have internet access but if you can bring one of these on out then everyone can just get on their phones and suddenly you can access all this great information sitting there now being sort of streamed locally to you. Yeah, oh that's awesome. Yeah, some of my pre-loaded colleagues were helping the students all build these sort of bits and pieces together and get them all together from the component parts and so these teams from Laura and Marshall Islands High School and Quasulon and Ponevale all have several decent raspberry pies. We call these in solar kits because it was purpose made in solar power so that they can be taken to place where there is no electricity. Yeah, amazing. So you know often times in this thing, so we were talking earlier about the language and cultural challenges there and often times we do tend to look at sort of this from a negative lens and say oh isn't this awful but you bring from living on a small and a unique set of skills and strengths, right? I mean you've had experiences that students here never have, right? So how are you able to incorporate some of these and bring stuff to your classroom? Well as a student at UH I think my role as a Marshall East student there is always important to me because no one could ever none of my other classmates who are not from Marshall Islands could say the perspective from a Marshall East because I grew up in the Marshall Islands and you know if there was certain topics or issues that they were talking about concerning the population or like something I would always have something to say about what the difference between the United States and what it's like back home. So like I've always carried my culture and my home with me wherever I go especially in classrooms and when I'm in the classroom some of my classmates they'd be surprised when I say I'm Marshall East they would say oh really and I mean I think it's important to let everyone else know that the Marshall East aren't just like staying at home people we're also trying to get educated just like all of them are. Marshall East historically are great travelers and Marshall East navigation is it's a whole amazing thing. That's why we have the canoe there. I had the pleasure of being on the Okiana Smotu there when I was out and so I could travel from Majora to Cologne so these are new sailing canoes but modeled on sort of traditional sailing canoes. Very interesting blend of old new technology sail power but with some solar panels on the back. Engines can run on coconut oil imported diesel fuel so very interesting. We have another project working up now to begin to use those as sort of floating classrooms to help get kids more involved in real-world science and technology boating because they're a big thing out there. So much water it's a little land. Excellent Excellent. So you bring that perspective which is unique right that is for students here they may hear the term COFA you know the Compact of Free Association and have some vague sense about what that means but you have a much better sense of really how that has impacted a culture there and it's really had profound effects right I mean it's certainly shaped your economy is it shaped the whole world. So it's very powerful to bring out that real-world perspective I think to your classmates. Excellent Excellent So what do you think that students who come to the Marshallese Education Day will get out of it? I think for the students who are participating they would be encouraged to keep doing good in school because they would want to be recognized for next year also and then for students who did not get the award it would encourage them to do better because I know friends when I was a recipient I know friends who were saying oh man I shouldn't have gotten that C and then you know they tried harder for the next year so it's a great initiative to increase our students grades you know switch to what you strive for is doing economic achievement. So are there ways for students to get more actively involved other than just sort of showing up at the door are there things they can do are there roles for students to play? So last year when we had the student sessions their teacher the person who was you know in charge of the student sessions she made them write poems you know so yeah and then this year we got to display one of the children's poems at the Micronesian Youth Summit we were giving out like bookmarks you know we turned those poems into bookmarks and so yeah. Lots of ways you can get kids to contribute we've done some work having high school students write you know little books for like beginning readers and they can tell traditional stories in their native languages and write it out and then illustrate these books too and then we produce these books so the kids younger kids will have this writing in their own language illustrated by yeah and like the importance of language I know when when students move here some of them they don't speak as as much English as you know the system expects them to but for me I believe you know like for me as a Marshallese I believe the Marshallese language is priority you know I have a two year old daughter so I try to teach her Marshallese because I don't want her to grow up and not know her own language you know because if you lose your language you lose your identity sure no it's absolutely critical that's when you want to teach kids second language when they learn the first so when they come here and when they some I know some of some students who come and then they try to forget the language I know they still remember it but they try to forget it and you know it's our job as the older ones to say you know you should really hold on tight to that language. We've seen what happened in Hawaii here that is 30 40 years ago the Hawaiian language sort of seemed like it was dying they really managed to make a resurgence of they've done Hawaiian immersion schools now where everything is done in Hawaiian and they've really brought language back there are more speakers now than there were before there's lots of interest in it as a language there's doing wonderful translation projects taking all the old Hawaiian newspapers and translating them into English so that they can appear in the trash so then if you had to give your fellow students or younger students a piece of advice about sort of education and all what would that be? My piece of advice is to always do your best in whatever task it is you're assigned to do whatever assignment even if it's a 10 to 20 page paper you should always do your best because you know you never know what's ahead and that everyone has potential in them so just always do your best Very good everyone does have potential we may all have different strengths but we all got to play to our strengths develop those areas where we're maybe not so strong and strive to do our best as you said well Arion it's been wonderful having you here on the show I've learned a lot let's just read it for our guests one more time April 21st, 8 to 3 Methodist Church on Vineyard Boulevard Marshall's Education Day and do not miss it a great chance to learn about Marshall's culture I assume more or less everybody is welcome there yep, okay, well excellent so again, thank you so much for joining me here today and I look forward to hearing the success of the program and perhaps getting you back on to talk about some more good things later Yes, thank you Thank you very much